Roughly nine years ago—i.e., around the time he was coming down from the filming of Spectre, which would turn out to be his penultimate James Bond film—Daniel Craig gave an interview so hugely indifferent to the concept of interviews that we still think about it to this day. (Craig had many great lines that day, but telling an interviewer asking him if he was excited to make another Bond movie that "I’d rather break this glass and slash my wrists" at that precise moment is the one that's stuck in our memory.) And while Craig can build up some simulation of star-level engagement when he's in the right mood, the point is that you're not ever going to catch him feigning interest in a topic he doesn't give two fucks about, something he re-illustrated in an interview/game he did with Queer co-star Drew Starkey today.
The pair were doing a variant of The Newlywed Game for Variety, answering questions about their working relationship and friendship on whiteboards, except when Daniel Craig could not be bothered to do that. (In a charming, "Who gives a fuck?" sort of way.) There are a lot of good moments in the interview, but the capper has to be when the pair are asked the slightly awkwardly phrased query, "If you were to pass the James Bond torch, who would you love to see play him?" Craig didn't even bother with the pen, just laughing, shaking his head, and issuing a cheerful "I don't care" before declaring he was going to spend his question time "Just doodling." Which is still gentler than his response in that old Time Out London interview, where he bluntly shot the same question down with "Look, I don't give a fuck." Daniel Craig: His genuine self, pretty much all the time.
It's been a bit of an odd day for Queer, Luca Guadagnino's latest, which stars Craig and Starkey as lovers traveling around Central and South America together. Distributor Mubi killed an entire annual film festival in Turkey on Thursday after authorities banned a showing of the film as a "threat to public peace"; in a longer statement, Mubi spokespeople said that "This ban not only targets a single film but also undermines the very essence and purpose of the festival," hence the decision to shutter the entire festival for the year.
